


Heart Bound, Soul Binding

by DarkWaterFalls



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Avengers don't exist, M/M, Soulmates, Tony is Iron Man, True Love, Wanderlust, travelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-06 09:34:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkWaterFalls/pseuds/DarkWaterFalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just because you're soulmates doesn't mean it'll be easy.<br/>True love comes at a price, one which needs to be paid at some point.<br/>Destiny also doesn't seem to play fair, you might even suggest that it plays dice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Soul Bound

**Author's Note:**

> Soulmates exist, everyone should have one, but it's not that simple. There is nothing preventing the death of another and childhood mortality, war, famine and inadequate healthcare still have a massive impact. Distance can mute the connection and some just don't have the chance, or the resources, to meet. You aren't always conveniently born on the same continent as your mate, nor is it guaranteed that you'll speak the same language.  
> Your tug should lead you to your meeting place, but that doesn't mean you always will be able to get there.

Loki could tell it is going to happen soon. Today would probably be the day, after years of waiting. The warmth had crept up through his bones and settled deep in his chest over the last few days, he could feel the directional tug when he closes his eyes and his fingers twitch and dance as he desires to touch anything within reach.

Don’t push; he tells himself, you know what you need to do.

He longs to jump up, chase the tug and find the person at the other end. The burning is a deep-seated desire, taking hold gradually over the course of time, until it is difficult to ignore. He breathes in, tasting the air and tries to reconcile what he has read with what he is experiencing.

He should not run and follow the compulsion; doing so could lead to disaster. There are plenty of stories of matches being lost due to the haste of the participants. Running into traffic as the compulsion drags them under, losing control when surrounded by people who weren’t right.

It isn’t just giving into the compulsion that is dangerous; pushing the meeting can topple things into perilous territory too. There are stories of people, people with more money than sense sometimes, travelling to find their other half. The people who push for the meeting... sometimes they even find their other half and manage to activate the bond. But because it’s been forced into being the bond is weaker, more fragile and prone to splintering. The participants aren’t ready, their bodies haven’t finished preparing for the other and they risk losing the other before they are stable enough. Research has suggested that lengthy courses of counselling and pair therapy can strengthen a weak connection, but the pair will always be at a disadvantage.

If you are lucky enough to still have your other half, there will always be a small tug present, no matter if the burning has triggered yet or not. It can be present from birth, but sometimes it is activated later if there is an age gap between the pair. If you train yourself, if you can concentrate on the tug enough, you can map the minute changes and follow it like a compass. 

That’s how Loki ended up in the city; he’d visited as a teenager and felt the tug sharpen. Sharpen only slightly, but he noticed all the same. He achieved success in his degree, convinced Darcy and they had packed up and moved there together as soon as possible. Darcy didn’t need to ask why, she understands. 

Loki has been obsessed with the idea of his soulmate from a very young age, from the childhood fairy stories to the scientific research papers he started to read as a teen. Darcy tends to tease him about it, saying he must be the best read non-academic on the subject that has ever existed. When his mother heard this, she had wondered why he hadn’t gone into it as a career. Loki had simply reasoned that he didn’t want his career to be something that he intended to enjoy in his personal life only.

Loki has dreamt about meeting his other half for almost his entire life. As a teen he’d reasoned that the childhood stories had been exaggerated and things couldn’t be that perfect, but upon researching the subject he was surprised at how accurate the stories were. A minor telepathic interface is very common between the subjects at touch, and the ability to impress emotions and feelings on each other is also possible at a distance. There is a measureable upswing the in a pair’s health, to the point where chronic conditions are known to improve when someone finds their match. If they have offspring, the pregnancies and birth processes are more likely to go well.

In the past there has been a whitewashing of the process and there had been an attempt by religious organisations of the time to preach that only the heteronormative applications of the bond were acceptable and that children from those unions were most blessed. This had not panned out well over the course of the last few centuries. Homosexual matches are relatively common and there is much support for the children born out of non-bound partnerships. Within the last century there have also been advancements in the recognition of non-romantic, non-sexual partnerships within the bound community. The simple acknowledgment that a soulmate did not mean a sexual relationship turned the research field on its head and caused there to be a renewed interest in the physiological aspects that the bond had on the body.

Loki places the tablet stylus down and scrubs his eyes with a hand. He’s drifting. This is a good sign; this means it’s coming closer. He shuts down the computer, pulls his jacket off the back of the chair and grabs his bag. He waves goodbye to the office, with shouts of well wishes and good luck following him. He knocks and sticks his head around his boss’s door, letting her know that he needs to go. He gets a bright, grinning response. He’s told to take as much time as he needs and is happily ushered out of the office and the building.

The warmth is closer to a slow burn now, pulsing along with the beating of his heart and spreading along every nerve. The fire energises him, pressing him on quickly and the pull is so strong it feels like he can see at least three steps ahead of himself. He’s only walked this way a few times before; he’s headed in the direction of the park. Now that he recognises the destination he picks up his pace, passing shops and cafes as he reaches the south entrance. He passes the children’s play park, sparsely populated in the late afternoon light, and he starts grinning as the excitement takes hold. He turns east at a path and can see a minor park entrance up ahead. 

A figure is coming through, a runner moving at a fair pace, and Loki starts a little at the sight. He can tell that it isn’t precisely the right moment, but he knows his match now that he has laid eyes on him. Shorter than him, bearded, brown-eyed and brown haired, the man is flushed with the heat of his exertion and Loki can hear the music blaring from his headphones. Loki feels his breath catch as the man passes him and Loki turns to keep his eyes on him.

As the man runs on, oblivious to Loki’s attention, Loki feels two sides warring within him. One has the desire to shout out, run after the man, to touch him and claim him. The other is still concentrated on the pull of the compulsion, trying to follow it and make Loki move towards it. Loki tears his eyes off the man, turns and dives forward along the path in the opposite direction from his match, almost breaking into a run in his haste.

He’s out of the east entrance before he knows it, barrelling along the street towards a small intersection. He screeches to a halt, bag swinging and panting hard. Everything starts to slot silently into place and he’s grinning suddenly. It’s here, he thinks. Here, here, here.

He concentrates on relaxing, and tries to slow his breathing down without much success. His heart is pounding and his blood is booming in his ears, the tension mounting steadily with each passing second. He pulls out his phone and texts Darcy, I’ve found him. He doesn’t look for a response, just stuffs his phone into his bag and scans the surrounding streets.

The burning has turned into a swift pressure; he’s gasping, but feels like he can’t get enough air into his lungs. Everything tightens into focus as he sees the man in the distance, still keeping a swift pace and heading towards Loki. This must be his route home, Loki realises, and the easiest point to stop him on the way. Loki watches as he approaches, stepping into his path and attempting to smile without feeling giddy from the sweet, burning pressure. The man is sweating heavily, his headphones are hanging around his neck and his eyes are focussed on the ground in front of him. Loki takes a deep breath.

The man runs past him.

For a split-second, Loki gapes and his stomach drops. Then his feet spur into motion as he takes off after the man, shouting after him, “Wait! Please, wait!”

The man slows halfway down the street, turns into a sedate backwards jog as he slows to a stop and watches Loki approach. The man puts his hands on his hips as Loki stops beside him, Loki hopes that his gasping breaths at least seem a little more plausible now.

Loki looks into the man’s face, into his eyes and mapping his face to his memory. His skin is thrumming and he feels the tug cease and melt into a warm weight sitting between his collarbones. He smiles as he begins to want. He now has a face to match to his soulmate imaginings, and he’s very pleased with the results. This is perfect, absolutely perfect.

The other man’s mouth thins as he watches Loki, one eyebrow rising as Loki continues to stare. “What?” he asks.

Loki’s heart stutters at the sound, deep and resounding. Perfect, it’s perfect. A name, he needs a name. “It’s Loki, I’m Loki.”

The man starts to lean away, confusion on his face. “I’m sorry?” He asks. “Who are you?”

The increase in distance has Loki stuttering, stumbling over his words as he watches the man’s face. “I thought... I’m...” he responds slowly.

The man starts to frown at Loki and then rubs his eyes, an expression of pain on his face. “I think you might have me confused with someone else. I’ve never met you before.” He says.

Loki feels a shiver of fear run through him; it contrasts badly with the bonding sensations, making him feel nauseous. He chokes out a response, words sticking in his throat. “I’m sorry; I just thought... You look like...”

The man shakes his head, looking at Loki with an expression bordering on pity. “I don’t know you.”

Loki’s throat feels like it’s closing, the compulsion is pushing him hard, slowing his mind and making it difficult to find words. He nods in response to the man’s statement. What can he do? Tactile sensation will confirm the truth, but how will he achieve that? Loki glances around, searching for something, anything. The whole situation is splintering, he felt like he had had control mere moments ago, just to have it slip through his hands like cupped water. The bonding sensations are urging him to do something, so he extends a hand towards the man and attempts a smile. “M-my apologies then, it was my mistake. I thought you were someone I knew. My name is Loki; I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.” 

Loki starts trembling as the man regards his hand, his face holding a wary and worried expression, was a closed, scared. It was an expression that you would present when shown a venomous, territorial snake. His eyes slide back up to Loki’s, obviously unconvinced with Loki’s attempt to make contact.

“Tony.” The man says. 

Loki lets out part of the breath he’s been holding, he’s got something. It’s a little progress, still not a lot, but more than he had. The name settles into his mind, weaving in with what he already knows of the man.

Tony rubs his eyes again, draws his eyes back up to Loki, and says, “Enchanted to meet you, I’ll be going now.” Tony takes off at a run, stumbling before he picks up a steady pace, side stepping some pedestrians. He is off and around the corner before Loki has a chance to articulate a response.

He drops his hand as some of the warmth starts to leech out of his body with Tony’s disappearance. The bonding sensation is still heavy on his mind, but most of the surety he had in the situation is gone. Tony is gone. It can’t have been him then, it must be someone else. He casts around, the other people on the street are together and getting into a parked car, there is no one else in the area.

Loki tries to take a step away, a vague idea to cross the street and look for someone else forming in his mind, but finds himself rooted to the spot. The bonding ritual won’t let him leave. What is he supposed to do now? Should he wait? Would Tony come back for him? He knows bonding, natural bonding, is fixed to a moment in time and a geographical location. If he leaves here, he’ll never get another chance. It must have been Tony; it couldn’t have been anyone else. Loki recognised him correctly, so something else must have gone wrong. Did Loki do the wrong thing? Did he not prepare well enough to meet Tony? Should he have done more calming exercises, or read up more on pair bond interactions?

He looks at his feet, and then the quiet street around him. He can’t stay here, standing alone on the street. It’ll be dark soon, and Darcy will wonder where he is and why he hasn’t come home. But what if she doesn’t worry at all? She knew that Loki was due to bond, Loki has just texted her himself. It’s pretty standard for soulmates to bond and then not reappear for days. He could waste away, waiting at the side of the street, and no one would notice.

He can feel cold slipping into his bones, replacing the burning and the tug with a solid, frozen sensation. He concentrates as hard as he can on his feet, wrinkling his brow as he imagines them coming loose from the ground and him lifting them as normal. The first movement wrenches a cry from his throat, his body protesting at the movement away from the bonding site. The second isn’t much better; the third is maybe a little less painful.

He concentrates on walking, placing one foot after the other. The pain wells quickly and Loki stifles a small sob each time it ebbs and then quickly wanes. He gets to the east entrance to the park, cold, dark, and experiences a sensation that steals the breath from his body. It rips through him, scraping at his ribcage, a feeling like sharp nails raking down his spine. He’d been used to the burning; the warmth had started about a week ago and had slowly stolen through his entire body. Its absence is felt as a keen loss, leaving only the memory of sensation in its wake, leaving Loki vacant.

That isn’t the worst part. The worst part is that Loki has never lived without the sensation of the tug; the pull had been an ever-present part of his life for as long as he could remember. He places a hand at the base of his throat, where the pull always solidified for him. There is nothing there, not a hint of sensation. 

He is empty, he is soulless and he is lost. He can feel the hollowness reverberate as he swallows against the wave of nausea.

His soulmate - his other half of his being - had not wanted him, so the bond potential had no reason to exist anymore. He is a ship lost at sea, with no anchor or mooring any longer.

He stares at his feet and methodically, ritually starts to move again.

He has to get home.

***

Loki rests his head against the front door of their home; the metal of the number plate is cool against his forehead. He walked the entire way home, across the city, in the dark and the rain. He has a travel card, he usually gets the bus, but no idea was holding a place in his mind. It had taken all of his concentration to continue walking.

His hands scrabble blindly in his bag for his keys, knocking his careful organisation structure out of place. He still hasn’t moved his head from the door as he pulls the keys out by their childish little love heart key ring. Darcy got him it years ago, it has ‘my soulmate’ engraved across the garish pink painted metal. Everything feels cold under his fingers as he slides the metal of the key between his finger and thumb. Eyes closed, he scrapes the key around the edge of the lock before finding the correct place, sliding it home and turning.

He stumbles in, the light filtering behind his eyelids. The hall smells of food, some kind of meat, and his stomach clenches with hunger as he opens his eyes. He turns, shuts the door, and stares at the familiar walls, pictures and fixtures. This is all he has got now. The thought makes his throat close. As he’d trudged home he had promised himself that he’d try and function, try and act normal from now on. Go to work, go to his gym class, have dinner with Darcy and speak to his family. He’d listed all his regular activates and despaired as everything seemed to small and inconsequential after the events of the day. He needed to try, he needs to try.

He stands in the hall he’d left in excitement just that morning, his keys clenched between his fingers, and tries to figure out where he is going to find the energy to go on. He didn’t know this would happen, didn’t consider the possibility and had not lingered on any of the few documented cases in his studies. Why would it happen to him?

He can hear the TV from the living room; Darcy is probably having dinner and relaxing with the prospect of a free evening. He doesn’t want to disturb, but he recognises that he needs someone –anyone - right now and his best friend would more than fit the bill. He drops his bag, shuffles towards the door, pushes it open and steps into the warmth and light.

“Hey! Lover boy! Where is he?” Darcy exclaims, smiling brightly up from the sofa.

Loki shuffles past, heading for his armchair. “Not here.” He answers flatly. I’m alone, he’s not mine. He’ll never be mine.

Darcy wriggles around in her seat, frowning and kicking the blanket off her legs, watching him as he crosses the room. “What do you mean by that? Where is he?” she asks again.

He lowers himself gingerly into the chair, grimacing. “I don’t know.” I can’t find him, I have no direction, and in a city like this? I won’t be able to find him again.

Darcy is up from her seat and standing beside him, moving at her usual swift movement pace. Her hand is soft on his face, her voice hesitant as she cups his cheek, “What happened?”

The tenderness of her fingers and the gentle tone of her voice hurt, they feel like a distant mockery of something called home. He sits in the warmth, the light of the living room and feels exposed. His nerves are raw and his chest feels hollow and empty after the ripping, tearing loss. His next exhale becomes a sob, tears spilling over as he turns his face into her hand and tries to hide.

Her arms come up around him as she cradles him to her chest, humming softly in comfort. “You’re freezing!” she gasps. 

Darcy loosens one arm from around Loki and stretches over towards the sofa, nabbing a corner of the blanket and dragging it towards her. Loki finds himself surrounded by warmth and wool, smelling of Darcy’s perfume and the home they share. It feels safe. He breathing starts to slow, the sobs start to taper off. 

Darcy is sitting on the arm of the chair now, rubbing his back in smooth circles. “Do you want to talk first, or have something warm to eat and drink before?”

“Food please,” he sniffles out, wiping his face, “and a tissue too.”

“I’m gonna move away, you be okay?” she asks.

He nods shortly, “yeah.”

She steps away, first handing him a wad of tissues from the box on the table and then moving towards the kitchen. He mops his face and eyes before blowing his nose. He slides the blanket off his shoulders to extricate himself from his coat, dumping it on the floor before wrapping himself up tightly again.

Darcy returns a few minutes later, a plate and mug in hand. She hands him the mug and places the plate on the arm of the chair. “Honeyed tea for your throat, and I brought some real butter home from work today, so hot buttered toast.” She explains, “I didn’t think you’d be able to stomach the heavy winter stew that the class made today.”

Loki nods and starts to sip the tea. His throat is well-soothed by the time the tea is finished, the sugar in the honey making him feel more stable. He picks up some toast, saturated with butter and starts to nibble. Darcy settles back on the sofa to wait, watching as he steadily devours the toast as he realises how hungry he is. 

With the toast gone and Loki staring at the dregs in the mug, Darcy asks, “Do you want...?”

“He left.” Loki interrupts abruptly. “He barely even noticed me, and then he left, taking everything with him.” He starts to blink back tears again, as the hollow space in his chest starts to throb steadily. “It hurts, it hurts so much,” he forces out.

Darcy is with him in an instant again, pressing up beside him on the seat of the chair, the warmth from her arm sinking through the blanket. “Why?” she whispers.

His shoulders hunch and his stomach drops as he remembers the warm brown of Tony’s eyes and chokes out, “He didn’t know who I was. The bond didn’t get completed, everything is gone, everything is ringing hollow and I can’t feel anything.”

Darcy exhales steadily, “Everything, the tug and all else too?”

Loki nods, sets his mug and plate down on the floor and turns to burrow into Darcy’s side, his head on her shoulder. “Everything. I’m terrified. I’ve never felt so alone, and there doesn’t seem to be anything else I can do.” He swallows against the lump in his throat, and continues, the words he’d tried to suppress spilling out, tumbling over each other as he rushes to express them. “I can still see him, I know the tilt of his mouth and I know the spark in his eyes. I just want to get up and walk, to search for him and find out why he’d do this. Or was it me? Was it my fault? Did I try too hard, did I not do something right? Did I read too much about it and not realise something that was right in front of me?”

Darcy hugs him closer, startling him out of his babbling. “Stop, no, stop.” she says, as he starts to tremble again. “You can’t have known that this was going to happen, and you can’t blame yourself for this. You’re not at fault for the actions of someone else. You did everything that you could; for god’s sake, you’ve done more than anyone else I’ve ever known!”

Loki smiles sadly up at her from his resting point on her shoulder. “Still not enough though, is it? I’m empty, unwanted and completely alone. I’m soulless and worthless altogether.”

Darcy lets out a small breath. “Loki...” she murmurs softly. “You’re not alone, you’re not soulless, and you know that’s never been true. We may be both far from home, but we’ve got each other. It’s not the end of everything; it might just be a beginning.”

Loki grimaces into Darcy’s cardigan. “You don’t, you don’t... You can’t... understand this.”

Darcy shifts her shoulder and responds, a hard, hurt tone in her voice. “Loki, look at me.” She didn’t continue until Loki tentatively meets her eyes. “You’re hurting right now, so I’m not going to hold that against you. You know that I can’t experience what you have. You know I’ll never be able to, you know I don’t have a tug to follow. You know that my match died a long time ago, and it’s not fair to use that against me.” She takes in a shuddering breath. “I may not know, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try to help.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...”

“I know. And you’ve always known how lucky you are to have this opportunity, and have never held it over my head. I want to help you, so let me.”

Loki nods and pulls her closer. “Thank you, I really need you right now.”

Darcy tucked his head under her chin. “We’ll find a way to deal with this, find a way to make this work. But let’s get you to bed first. You’re not expected in work tomorrow, so take advantage of that while you can.” 

***

Loki’s dreams were unsettled that night. After being tucked in by Darcy he’d fallen into a deep sleep, soon punctuated by soft mumbling voices and the tinkling of metal falling on metal. His mind had strained to distinguish the sounds, but had been distracted at every turn by a whirring of machinery and a trickle of sweet, mechanical bleeps. It wasn’t disturbing, it was restful at times when he heard the voices, but it was unfamiliar all the same.

***

When he woke up the next morning, it was much earlier than when his alarm was usually due to go off. He’d gone to bed earlier than he normally did, and had awoken, well rested, before the time he usually dragged himself out of bed. Loki leans over and turns off the alarm on his bedside clock. He listens as Darcy gets up, showers, and makes herself breakfast before speeding out the door in record time.

As he lies there, listening to the sounds of the early morning outside, he rubs the base of his throat. It is so strange, such an alien sensation. It isn’t the agony of the previous night, it’s more subtle. It is the ache of loneliness, an anaesthetised reaction. He had felt hollow the previous night, and now is no different. It was as if a great hand had extended and scooped out part of his chest cavity, leaving no traces of damage to his viscera but removing a large chunk of what Loki considers to be part of the definition of himself. He now feels like he is reaching for memories and finding them dulled by an inability to understand them anymore.

He has lost so much. He himself is lost. Where is he right now? What was he doing when he came to this city? There really isn’t any point to it anymore.

Loki sits up in bed; sheets falling from his body, and lets his eyes scan the room. It’s bare of all but books, a couple of knickknacks lie on shelves and there are very few pictures of friends, family. He can clearly see now, he has been holding his life at a pause. He’s been searching for so long; he has forgotten how to settle. He’s pinned so much of his time on finding his match that he hasn’t even built a life around himself. His home was definitely more Darcy’s than his, she’s actually attempted to make a mark on her surroundings.

His fingers started to pluck at the duvet cover as he considers the pile of soulmate reference material he can see sitting on his desk. He has annotated copies of fairy stories, notes he’d taken in childish handwriting that slowly morphed into his adult penmanship, and extracts from scientific papers of note. He doesn’t need it anymore, he had spent so much time on it and it means nothing to him now. So much of the meagre contents of his room meant little or nothing. He could probably pack up the important parts of his life – apart from Darcy of course, she’d complain about being boxed with his books – and leave. Cut ties and start anew somewhere else, somewhere where the hollowness doesn’t ring in his chest so much and somewhere where he can be alone with his own thoughts.

Wasn’t that what Darcy had said? This just might be his beginning.

He gets up, showers and dresses informally. His boss is usually in the office early and Loki has a request to make.

\---

When Darcy returns home from work at about 4pm, Loki is already back and is sitting in the kitchen. Upon his return from the city Loki had tidied up the living room, cleaned the bathroom and done some washing. He’d thrown open the windows and blared music as he tried busy his mind, whipping up frenetic energy as he completed the chores. Unused to the quiet of an empty home, he tried to fill it with something that resembled normalcy between himself and Darcy.

It cools soon enough though. Dinner is bubbling in the oven and the windows are now closed as the chill of the afternoon and a rainstorm outside sets in. There is a single lamp on in the kitchen - behind where Loki sits - and the oven is blazing, cheerily heating the small room. Loki is curled on the (only comfy) kitchen chair in the corner, tapping idly at his laptop keyboard and link hopping as he waits for Darcy to return.

The kitchen door swings open and Darcy proclaims loudly, “Worship me, for I have returned!”

Loki smiles sardonically, slipping easily into their interaction and replying sarcastically, “Oh miraculous and powerful deity, dinner is ready and chores are mostly done. I only require your magic fingers to lay waste to the laundry and ironing piles and we’re fucking even.”

Darcy snorts, “Someone is feeling sassy today, what’s cooking masterchef?”

Loki types a little more, an e-mail to Frigga, before answering, “Remains of the stew from yesterday, with added bacon, the last of that frozen stock, some potatoes, onions and barley.”

“Mmmmm... salty. And winterish.” Darcy says, muffled as she pulls off her knitted jumper.

“I wish that I wasn’t so used to you proclaiming everything I cook as salty.” Loki says, the bantering talk slips easily from his mouth, but he can feel himself getting unsettled.

Darcy sticks her tongue out at him. “Your fascination with bacon, as with your taste in men, always leaves a funny taste in my mouth.”

“You still eat it.” Loki mutters as he folds his legs under himself, attempting to find more warmth as Darcy starts unpacking her bag.

“Yeah, that’s because I always love it when you cook.” Darcy says, slightly distracted by her rooting in her backpack. “I do it as a day job; I don’t like having to do it again at home.”

The words are getting harder now, memories of the previous day setting back in and Loki is unable to ignore Darcy and concentrate on something else. “Students make anything fun today?” he asks, words feeling as dense as treacle as he forces them out.

Darcy raises a dish from a bag on the table, presenting it towards him, “Pie!” she proclaims.

It pulls a small smile from Loki, knowing how much Darcy loves her pastry craft. 

Darcy starts bustling about, putting things away, popping the pie in the fridge and chattering about the barley in the stew, her night out the next weekend and how she hopes Loki washed her favourite shirt today. Loki nods distractedly at the correct moments, murmurs his assent and attempts to concentrate on the words on his screen in front of him. Maybe if he stares harder, the hole in his chest will stop feeling like it is trying to gape open. Yeah, he thinks, and then maybe the floor will open and swallow me up and make this stupid mess easier.

He didn’t realise that Darcy is in front of him, grasping his wrist to move his hand from the keys, pulling the laptop away and closing it to place it gently on the kitchen table. Loki tugs his wrist from her hand lightly and shoves his hands under his thighs. He prays that she didn’t notice the placement of his hands, four fingers resting on the letters T, O, N and Y. Longing to type them, but not willing to let them leave his head. If he lets them leave, will he lose them? Lose the little that he’d gained, lose the little that he had been allowed?

He tucks his chin into his chest and grips his hands into fists in the soft material of the cushioning beneath him. Before he knows it, Darcy has perched on the arm of the chair, placing her feet awkwardly each side of his hips and reaches out for him, pulling him to her chest. She wraps an arm around his shoulders and slides a hand up and down his spine.

Loki’s hands loosen in the cushioning and reach up to rest on her legs, before his arms wrap around her waist and he pulls her into his lap. She smells like tomatoes and basil, mixed with cinnamon from her baking. He snorts into her shoulder, Darcy always smells like food. He’s learnt long ago that Darcy + food = comfort. That equation has never failed him yet.

“Why are you so cold?” she whispers hesitantly.

“I haven’t been able to get warm since yesterday.” He admits into the fabric of her shirt.

She raises her head to look at his face, “D’you want me to go get you a blanket?”

Loki shakes his head and pulls her closer into the embrace. “Maybe later, but not now.”

\---

Loki allows Darcy to fuss over him; she fetches her blanket for him and prepares the rest of dinner. She shoos him away when he tries to set the table and practically spoon feeds him stew and pie until he’s fit to burst.

She harries him in through the swing doors into the living room when he’s finished, intent on setting him up on the sofa for the evening. He just shakes his head at her and asks in a small voice, “Can I just go to bed please?” 

Darcy smiles and nods at him. “If you can make your way upstairs, I’ll get you a hot water bottle and some tea.”

Loki pulls the blanket over his head and smiles sadly back at her. “Don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Darcy’s expression turns upset; worsening as she watches Loki wrap himself deeper into the blanket, make his way out of the living room and up the stairs to their bedrooms.

\---

Darcy fetches Loki’s laptop and phone from the kitchen, dragging them up the stairs with the tea and hot water bottle. Once she’s up there, Loki has already changed and brushed his teeth and is clambering under the duvet and sheets, attempting to tuck himself deeper. She plugs both the laptop and phone into charge, places the tea on the bedside table and slides under the covers at Loki’s invitation.

She plops the hot water bottle, furry cover side down, onto Loki’s stomach and starts punching the pillows under her head into a comfortable shape. Loki is still sitting up, leaning against the headboard and flicking through some paperwork that had been sitting on the bed. “What’s that?” She asks. “That had better not be work, so help me.”

Loki chuckles slightly, not meeting her eyes. “Not work, but also slightly related to work. It’s also something I need your help with right now.”

Darcy frowns and narrows her eyes at Loki, attempting to look menacing while tucked up to the neck in bed. “Loki, what have you done?”

Loki’s hand stills on the paper, holding them flat. “You know about the money my parents, that is... my real parents, left me?”

Darcy nods, “I remember Thor talking about it. Saying you should buy a car or something once it matured and you had access to it. Then I remember you throwing a punch at him and shouting at him to shut up about the whole thing.”

Loki smiles, remembering the fight, and nods while saying, “Thor was so obsessed with that money, he wanted me to do so much with it. At first I thought it was greed, or jealousy. I realised afterwards that he wanted me to go travelling with it, do something with it, and do something for myself for once.”

“Really?” Darcy asks as she sits up, “Is that why he wanted you to go InterRail with him after you graduated?”

Loki nods, remembering his excitement at Thor’s invitation, and says, “I didn’t though, I reinvested the money.” His hand begins to idly stroke the paper again as he continues, voice growing sad, “I had ideas for that money, it was to be my nest egg. So that when I found my other half we could do whatever we wanted, if only for a little while. I dreamt about using it to buy or build our own home, relocating to somewhere more exotic together, maybe starting a family once we’d settled down and the bond had solidified.” He looks up at Darcy again, voice steady but eyes brimming with more unshed tears. He smiles wryly, “Kind of pointless now, eh?”

Darcy shakes her head, leaning over to grip Loki’s free hand. “No.” She says, “Never pointless. You wanted it, so it was never a pointless plan.”

Loki squeezes her hand back and scrubs his eyes with his other hand. He sniffs slightly, before starting, “I went into work this morning – no, please, let me explain this-” he waves away her question, and takes a deep breath. “I went into work before the office opened because my manager is a workaholic and is usually in the use the staff gym before getting started for the day, so I caught her quickly. I explained what had happened, very briefly, attempting to spit it all out before I started crying. I just needed to explain.” Loki shook his head and looked up at Darcy. “Do you know what she did?”

Darcy shook her head, murmuring a soft, “No.”

Loki gave a small gurgling laugh. “She reminded me that I had rolled over almost two years of my holiday days, and that it - counted with the lieu time I had accrued – amounted to more than three months leave.” Loki waved a hand vaguely in the air, trying to express his puzzlement at the situation. “She said to make it four and to take as much time as I need, just as paid leave.”

By now Darcy’s eyebrows were making headway into her hairline, disbelief plain on her face. “Four months.” She stated, “Four months, straight paid holiday. No questions asked.”

Loki shrugged, still perplexed. “She must like me! It’s a family business. She’s the big boss. She phoned the HR man and set it up that morning. I think he had a heart attack from the sounds of the phone call.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

Loki places his hand flat on the paper again. “I’m going to do what Thor suggested a long time ago. I’m going somewhere warm, somewhere to travel and somewhere to explore.” He tilted his head towards Darcy, “I need your help with this, and I want to do it properly. I’ve got most of the visas sorted already, but I need your planning skills.”

Darcy’s hands trembled as she picks at the duvet cover, thinking. “Are you sure?” She finally asked.

Loki nods. “I’ve organised an open return, I can come back whenever I want. Bills and rent are being automatically paid for the next while.”

Darcy raises her hand to rub her face. “That’s something at least,” she sighs, and then asks, “When? How much time do we have?”

Loki gives her a long, sheepish look. “Next week. The flight to Thailand is in six days.”

Darcy collapses forwards, onto the bed. “Fucking hell, Loki...” she groans out.

Loki buries his hand into the hair at the back of her neck and starts scratching the skin he finds there, “I know, I know.” He says.

She sits up, grabbing his hand and twining their fingers together. “Are you really just doing this to escape?”

Loki smiles at her, “It’s the first thing that came to mind. It’s logical when you think about it, I need a distraction.”

Disbelief plain in her voice, Darcy repeats, “A distraction, really?”

Loki slumps back onto the pillows. “No, I suppose not. That’s a simple way of putting it. I guess... I don’t know who I am anymore. I’d planned my life for something that isn’t going to happen anymore, and it made me realise that I’d paid no attention to myself over the last few years, if not for the last decade.”

Darcy hums slightly before answering, “So this is space then. This is you giving yourself time.”

He smiles slightly, happy that she is beginning to understand. “It’s reset time, somewhere warm and somewhere different. I will be coming back, but I need to come back for my own sake, and not for anyone else.”

“I think I approve, tentatively at least.” Darcy then squeezes his hand, asking firmly, “Will you tell me his name at least?”

Loki looks down at their entwined hands, before answering with a tremor in his voice. “Tony.” He says. “Tony. He’s older than me. He has brown hair, brown eyes. He’s shorter than me and slightly taller than you. He has... more of a Mediterranean skin tone than you or I.”

Darcy snorts with a short laugh, “Loki, we’re both milk bottles.”

He smiles, “I know, statement still stands.”

Darcy takes his hand in both of hers, tracing the knuckles with her thumbs. “I want to ask this, but you really don’t have to answer... do you miss him?”

Loki’s breathing hitches, and his chest tightens around the hollow feeling, but he squeezes out, “More and more each time I think about him.”


	2. Spellbinding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holding yourself together is hard, you clench your fists, grit your teeth and hold on for all you’re worth.  
> Over time you think that it’s got easier, that you’ve recovered, and that you’ve somehow cemented yourself back into place. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes you’ve found someone that fills in the gaps that you didn’t realise were there, that you’ve found someone who shores up your defences, just as you shore up theirs.  
> Sometimes that doesn’t happen.  
> You don’t meet your counterpart, you don’t realise that you’re still holding yourself as hard as you did at first; it’s just become second nature, you don’t realise anymore. You’ve forgotten that you’re doing it until you try and loosen the hold you have.

The statement that Tony Stark didn’t believe in soulmates was viewed as common fact by the media and general population. Due to his famous soulmate parents, he’d grown up within the arms of the tabloids and intrusive reporters. Photos of his third birthday party were spread around the world, hand in hand with stories of strife from their picture-perfect American family.

 

When Pepper Potts first started working as Tony’s PA she initially refused to comment on the old lines, trotted out time after time, regarding loneliness and the tragedy of her boss’s hatred of soulmates. She hasn’t heard anything regarding it from him, so she doesn’t know how to address it. She just brushes the questions aside and moves on to other matters.

 

All of that changes when her tug heightens and the burning starts one summer morning.

 

She is _uncomfortable._  Her suit feels too restrictive against her sticky skin and she has to keep trying to not gasp for breath as her temperature peaks. She needs to go into work because she knows it isn’t happening yet, she knows that it’ll be a few days before everything slotted into place. There is also the unspoken question of how Tony would react to the news.

 

She realises that she’s made the right decision as she walks into Tony’s air conditioned lab and sighs in relief at the sudden drop in temperature. She pulls out her notepad as she walked towards Tony’s bench where he’s already started for the day, ready to debrief and set out plans.

 

 She pulls out a stool from under the table and perches on it to wait for Tony to give her his attention or signal that he was listening and she should start.

 

Without looking up from his current project, Tony waves a hand and says, “I’m ready, get started.”

 

Pepper pulls out her pen and touches it to paper under her first agenda heading, “Is there anything to pass over about the fundraiser last night?”

 

Tony frowns slightly into the bowels of a machine, and then shrugs before saying, “I went, I threw some money around and I left.”

 

Pepper pauses, “There isn’t anyone I need to throw out is there?” she asks.

 

Tony’s frown deepens as he shakes his head, elaborating further, “People started asking uncomfortable questions, so I bought some drinks, threw some money at the bar and put in some arbitrary bids for things in the raffle. Then I slipped away from the crowds, got Happy to pick me up somewhere quiet and came home.”

 

Pepper smirks slightly at Tony, he doesn’t hide his hatred of the press around her and she frequently admires his honesty about it. “That reminds me,” she says, flicking through a brochure under her notepad. “Your random bidding won you a ‘priceless 8 foot marble tribute to the Grecian gods’.”

 

Tony sniggers, “Oh god, it had to be that one didn’t it? It’s _hideous._ ”

 

Pepper smiles, “Truly.” She agrees, “What are you doing with it? Put it into storage as per usual?”

 

“Nah, RIT is opening a new branch in Tokyo. Get it shipped out there as a decoration.”

 

Pepper hums in the back of her throat, making a note, before saying, “You know that someone is going to figure out at some point that all these little companies are just fronts to market your inventions.”

 

Tony puts his tools down and reclines in his chair. He rubs his hands over his face before running them through his hair. “Hopefully not before I buy them all up and mash them all together under the banner of the new Stark Industries.” He says.

 

Pepper rolls her eyes at Tony, tapping her pen against the pad. The burning is becoming uncomfortable again after the initial relief of the cool lab, she shifts on her stool before saying, “You keep saying that, but you haven’t made any specific plans. Also, why buy them when you own them already?”

 

Folding his arms behind his head, Tony considers her before answering, “They deserve to know how much their work is worth, and it also gives people a chance to leave before I chew them all up.”

 

“I suppose, bonuses and severance pay and the like?”

 

“Precisely.” Tony is still staring at her, pursing his lips as he considers something. “What’s wrong?” He finally asks.

 

Pepper desperately tries to not look guilty, her fingers quickly stilling in their twisting of her pen and she clears her throat before saying, “I’m just a little warm.”

 

There is a soft voice from the lab’s speakers, “Miss Potts’s temperature is currently running about 1.4 Celsius above her current average to date.” Jarvis intones.

 

“Are you sick?” Tony asks quickly, his tone exasperated and worried in equal measure. “Did you come in when you’re sick again Pepper?”

 

Pepper quickly shakes her head, gripping her pen tightly and avoiding Tony’s eyes, “It’s nothing, and I’m fine.”

 

“Pepper...” Tony says softly. “Don’t treat me like an idiot. I know I sometimes seem like it, but I’m really not. Something isn’t right, and I’d like to know if I can help.”

 

Pepper gulps slightly, considering her response, before answering in a small voice, “My burning started this morning.”

 

Tony drops his arms, face morphing from worry to shock, and then settling on a soft smile, just for her. He settles his hands on his lap and moves his eyes to them, away from her face. She thinks she doesn’t imagine his expression turning slightly sad. “Congratulations.” He says gently, “That’s fantastic for you.”

 

She pauses for a second, before saying hesitantly, “I’ve got a few days yet, and I can find someone to take over from me while I take my two weeks settling leave.”

 

Tony looks up at her finally, still smiling, but slightly less of a watery expression on his face now. “Two weeks isn’t enough.” He states.

 

“That’s standard.” Pepper replies.

 

“It’s the end of June now; it’ll be July before you bond. I’d suggest you take July and be more stable when you come back.” He says, voice getting stronger and shaking a finger at her, “You’d be better for it, and your bond will be strengthened by the extended time.”

 

Pepper looks away from the wagging finger and down at her note pad. She smiles, gets up from her stool, steps over to Tony’s chair and leans over to hug him. “Thank you,” she breathes into his neck.

 

Tony pats at Pepper’s back before saying, “Holy crap, you’re boiling.” He then disentangles himself from her hold and settles back in to his chair, resting a hand on the reactor and rubbing at it absentmindedly. “You didn’t believe any of that horseshit the media prints about me a soulmates, right?” Tony asks, with a small smile on his face.

 

Pepper sniffles slightly, stepping back to rest her lower back against Tony’s worktable. “You don’t talk about it.” She answers, feeling inadequate.

 

The sad smile is back again as Tony stares at her, slightly pityingly. “Pepper, the reason I don’t talk about it is because I don’t have one. There isn’t anything to talk about.”

 

So, now that Pepper is poised to become the CEO of the newly amalgamated and resurrected Stark Industries, she fights even harder whenever she hears slander regarding Tony Stark and soulmates. He won’t talk about it - because he never does - but she will always remember the heartbreak in his eyes, and the kindness that he had towards her after she bonded. He won’t take her pity, but she can try to fight his corner and protect him from their unkind barbs.

 

***

 

Tony remembers his parents fighting throughout his childhood, waking up to hear them screaming at each other is one of his earliest memories. There are quiet moments, lovely moments and moments that are crafted for the camera. Theirs is a relationship that is forged equally from the fire of passion for each other and anger in that they rely upon each other to such a high degree.

 

Tony’s mother came from a socialite family, she is a daughter of a soulmate couple and she sparkled in the limelight from a very young age. She’d been a childhood movie star and still takes bit parts here and there as she gets older. She portrays the elegance of the Hollywood age and dines out most nights on her fame and family status. She’s attending a charity ball one evening when she meets Tony’s father.

 

Tony’s father is a technological hero. He owns and operates a company that has been built on the production of weapons during the Second World War; he is both loved and reviled in equal measure. He’s considered too uncouth for high society, but cannot be excluded due to his military importance and millionaire status. He meets Tony’s mother whilst swaggering down the red carpet of a charity event he was sponsoring.

 

They bond on the red carpet, in front of all the cameras, and are front page news the world over. The handsome engineer and the beautiful socialite, it’s a match made in media heaven.

 

Tony hates it, he hates every single second. He dislikes that people can find out more about his childhood in magazines and newspapers than you can in family albums and keepsakes. Each piece is simpering adoration at the perfect family, whilst sniggering at the obvious tensions that exist between Tony’s parents. The speculation about Tony’s soulmate existed from an early age, but he never understands the interest. He always wondered as a child why he would want the same chaotic and tumbling relationship that he parent’s have. He can’t see the appeal, and his parents had never enlightened him as to why he should.

 

His first lesson in soulmates, and then conversely in the despicable nature of human beings, comes when he is in school. He is about eight years old and a pupil at a very respectable Catholic boy’s preparatory school. They’d been passed out a book of approved fairy stories each to be read over the week with family, and the nun started explaining to them about soulmates. How they are the other half of your life, how they complete your being and how they are a holy gift from god that is not to be wasted.

 

Intrigued by the elderly nun waxing lyrical on the subject, he clutches the book to his chest on the ride home from school. He wants to find his mother so she could explain to him about what the nun means about things like _unending love_ and _perfect balance._ If his mother couldn’t explain it, especially in the context of his parent’s relationship, she might at least spend some time with Tony for once and read the stories with him.

 

When he gets home, he rushes upstairs to discover his parent’s bedroom door is locked against his entrance. Disheartened, he heads downstairs to find his kindly, elderly nanny making him dinner in the kitchen. She isn’t the most literate of people, so apologises and sadly declines when he shows her the book and asks her to read the stories with him. After dinner, clutching his book and schoolbag, he makes his way to his bedroom, glancing down the corridor towards his still-shut parent’s door.

 

When he gets into his room, he dumps his bag on the desk and curls up with a blanket in the armchair in the corner of his room and starts to read. He gets caught up in the stories, of kind knights travelling the lands to find their loves, Sleeping Beauty being woken from the evil witch’s spell by a kiss from her soulmate who had travelled to find her when she hadn’t came to their bonding site, and Cinderella who had fled from her bonding out of fear of being found to be wanting in her princess-ly characteristics, just to be found again and accepted for who she was.

 

He falls asleep on his chair thinking about soul bonds, soulmates and the difference between what he has read and what he experiences with his parents each day, the dichromatic mix of their anger and fighting with their obvious love and affection for each other. He is woken by the night butler who helps him get ready for bed.

 

After Jarvis tucks him in for the night, he starts thinking on the stories of handsome princes riding on white horses to find their loves. It all seems so unreal, so fake. He knows from his parents that the fairytale stories of soulmates are no more than that, just stories to convey a lesson. He wouldn’t want to be being chased for his hand in marriage and wouldn’t want to be the chaser either.

 

He realises then what he wants. He wants someone who will be his partner. Someone who will talk with him, will play with him, drive with him, will sit across from him when they go out to dinner and... Do other things adults do, Tony supposes. He can’t think what his future would be like with a soulmate, but then he doesn’t really know what his parents do when he’s not there. His father invents and his mother goes out occasionally. But that can’t be all that they do.

 

Tony rolls over in bed and sets the problem aside. It’ll be something he’ll consider later; he shouldn’t meet his soulmate, his partner for a while. His final thought is that he at least has time to figure it out between now and then.

 

***

 

The next day is quiet, but the one after throws everything into upheaval.

 

The boys get taken out of class, get changed into their gym clothes and go outside onto the grass field on the school grounds. They’re told the spread out, leaving a metre of space around each side of them. A few nuns come along and chivvy boys apart who are giggling at the change of pace from their daily lessons.

 

Something then happens that Tony isn’t expecting. They’re asked if anyone has identified their tugs yet. Tony casts his eyes about, confused. A few boys raise their hands, others nod, and one pipes up that he doesn’t know what he’s looking for.

 

The nuns begin to show them a few basic exercises, breathing, concentration and stretches. They’re told that the tug will centre somewhere in their chests, there is no exact position, but if they start at their sternum and continue the breathing exercises, they should be able to move their hand and identify the centre of it.

 

Tony places his hand on his chest and starts to follow the meditative breathing exercises. He eyes one of the boys beside him and watches as his hand slowly slides towards the right side of his chest. As the boy blinks his eyes closed, he starts to smile. The boy to the other side of Tony already has his hand over his heart and is grinning fit to burst. Tony frowns slightly, clears his face and then clenches his eyes closed, concentrating hard.

 

Nothing. He can’t feel anything. He shifts his hand slightly, hoping to feel a change under his fingers, but he can’t feel a thing other than his chest rising with each breath and his racing heart.

 

Too soon for Tony, the class is called to order. They’re told to practice regularly, to grow familiar with their bonds.

 

Tony promises himself that he will practice; he will find where his errant bond has gone.

 

***

 

Tony has worried himself to tears over the last five days. He’d barely stirred from his room over the weekend, spending as much time as possible meditating and breathing, before getting frustrated at his lack of progress and beginning to do something else. Each time he gives up, he’s brought back to the idea of the bond, of his soulmate. Little things remind him: the fairytale book sitting on his desk, his parents at lunch, clasping hands and staring adoringly at each other while Tony eats across from them. After each reminder... he tries again. And again, and again.

 

By the next week, he’s convinced himself that he’s cursed. And in his panicking, anxious state, he does the worst thing that he could do. He kicks himself for it afterwards, but he did it at the time and can’t undo it now.

 

He tells someone what’s wrong. They’d asked why he was so tired, and Tony is so worried and looking for reassurance... he tells them. He’s worried that he doesn’t have a soulmate. They clap his shoulder and tell him he’ll be fine.

 

Tony first notices the whispering later that day. Then came the pointing, and then came the jeering. At one point he finds himself trapped in a circle of cruelly laughing older boys, being pushed from one to the other, while chants of ‘soulless Stark! Soulless Stark!’ echo across the playground.

 

They eventually get stopped. Things eventually die down. Tony eventually stops being the butt of all the jokes, but it doesn’t go back to the way it was before. Tony feels lonely. Separated from his classmates in a way that he didn’t think was possible.

 

He is now Soulless Stark. Without a soulmate and alone.

 

He is flicking through one of his father’s basic engineering texts when the idea occurs to him. He gleefully smacks his small hand flat, palm down on a page on basic robotics. If he can’t have friends, he can try and _make them._

 

***

 

The first soulmate incident went unnoticed by his parents, which Tony was very thankful for. Tony had outstripped the school very quickly, and had then been shipped off somewhere else to be educated. He enjoys the change of scenery, appreciates people not judging him anymore, and enjoys the new freedoms afforded by the mixed gender school that streams pupils towards Ivy League universities each year. He is careful though, very careful. He has learnt to keep people at arm’s length, learnt not to share too much information and learnt never to talk about soulmates again.

 

His second soulmate incident doesn’t go so well. By 15 he is enrolled as an undergraduate at MIT. He wows his classmates with his robotics knowledge, and is learning that he could impress people more privately if he puts his mind to it.

 

He is, to put a loose term on it, dating a classmate. It is relatively serious. She’s a few years older than Tony and was willing to put up with Tony’s initial clumsy advances. She is especially willing once she learned that he can be a quick study and is more than willing to experiment with whatever she suggests. They are both young and relatively smitten with each other.

 

That is, until she mentions soulmates.

 

It is a minor utterance, moaned in the heat of pleasure and probably said without meaning, but it throws a bucket of cold water over Tony’s desires.

 

He flings himself from the bed, hand trembling as he grabs for his discarded shirt. She makes a sound of displeasure from her prone position on the bed, so he stammers out, “I don’t believe... I don’t have a soulmate.” He pulls on his jeans and is out the door in a flash, shoes and socks in hand.

 

Things thoroughly fuck up after that. His partner in crime, playing the part of a jilted lover very well at Tony’s radio silence, goes to the press with Tony stammered words. The headline blasts from every gossip rag across the country. “Stark Heir Soulmate Accusation!” “More Stark Soulmate Trouble!”

 

He keeps his head down, tries to keep his nose clean. He sits as close as he can to the door in lectures so he can nip out as fast as possible. He’s glad of his private lab, where he can sit and tune up his bots and deny others access. He knows it can’t last though.

 

It blows up when he goes home for Christmas. He misses MIT something fierce, he misses his classes and he can’t wait to get back to building things on his own. He never has any freedom in his father’s lab, so he is lurking in his room when he gets called into a “family meeting” within a few days of his arrival back at the mansion.

 

It doesn’t go well. He first gets accused of bringing the family name into disrepute, then giving the press fodder to throw at his parents, then showing a nonexistent rift at the heart of their family.

 

Tony stays quiet after his first protest gets shot down. He allows his father to continue ranting and his mother interjecting –worriedly - at opportune moments. At his first chance, at the first indication of a pause in proceedings, he asks, “May I leave now?”

 

“No!” His father insists. “Not until we sort this stupid business out.”

 

Tony harrumphs, undignified and uncaring. “You’re not listening to me anyway,” he insists, “I didn’t say any of that shit in those rags. You have to know that!”

 

His parents exchange a glance and his father turns away towards the side table. His mother turns towards Tony. “It doesn’t matter,” she says, “The thing that matters the most is how we handle it.”

 

“Handle what?” Tony asks, exasperated. “There isn’t anything to handle. There isn’t anything I can fix.”

 

His mother smiles kindly, and tries to explain, “We’ll make a statement. You’ll say there was a misunderstanding, which there was. And then you’ll explain that you’re patiently waiting the arrival of your soulmate.”

 

Tony tries to bite his tongue and clenches his teeth against the familiar throb in his chest. “I won’t.” He finally says. “I won’t lie.”

 

His mother lets out a short, frustrated sigh, “It’s really simple darling, and you’re not even lying.”

 

“I would be.” Tony answers shortly.

 

“Darling...” his mother trails off.

 

Now or never, Tony thinks. “I don’t have one.” Tony bites out shortly. “I’m not going to lie and say I do.”

 

There is a tinkling shatter from the side of the room, his father has shattered a glass, and his mother groans in shock. “That’s horrible, it can’t be true.”

 

Tony shrugs, feigning indifference. “Can I leave now?”

 

“No.” His mother and father say in unison.

 

“We’ll still need to make the statement.” His mother says towards his father.

 

“Just word it carefully to avoid damage.” His father says.

 

“The idea of a soulmate must be maintained, for the family’s sake.” Tony’s mother says.

 

Tony sinks deeper into the padding of his chair, closing his eyes against the chatter around him. _Appearances and soulmates_ , he thought, _things he cared little for nowadays._ He gulped at the thought, sensing the lie in his mind and pushing down the old hurt. His parents are still arguing, talking about the merits of Tony’s soulmate now, wondering if they should hire a stand in for some photos to up the image. Tony rolls his eyes at the thought. “I’m not doing it, and you can’t make me.” He says.

 

His father levels a finger at him and snarls, “You will do as we say, for our family.”

 

Tony rolls his eyes at the threat. “It’s not happening. I’m not playing happy families and soulmate fantasies while I dance for the press.” Tony reiterates, “I don’t believe in it and I’m not doing it to save fucking face for this piece of shit family.”

 

His mother gasps, and his father growls at him, murmuring threats under his breath as he clutches his wife’s shoulder.

 

Tony stands, scraping the chair along the hardwood floor. He finally realises that he’s of a height with his father for the first time and can look him in the eye. “I’m not lying for you, for a family in which I play a second string to your soulmate relationship.” He says coldly, “I’m not lying to anyone about my lack of a soulmate, and since I have you both as an example, I’m glad I don’t have one to ruin.”

 

Tony turns and escapes out the parlour door, he heads back up to his room and waits for someone to come crashing through his door to drag him back down. No one does. He curls up on his raggedy armchair, fiddling with the loose threads on the arm. He regrets that last barb at his parents, he really does, but he wonders the truth in it. If he had a soulmate, would he be destined to ruin them? Would he be destined to spend the rest of eternity fighting with them, arguing over semantics and giving each other the cold shoulder over the slightest of things? Would they shun their children, like he had been ignored throughout his life?

 

He sniffles slightly, thinking back to the perfect partnership he’s envisioned as a child, and gives a wet chuckle. Balance and the idea of your other half, Tony knows that it isn’t and wouldn’t be perfect, but he’d give anything for it to be true. Just to prove his parents wrong and feel an idea of family. But he has no chance of that, he truly knows that now.

 

***

 

Tony’s parents die less than a month later in a car accident. He’s drunk for the funeral, drunk for the rest of the month, and drunk well into the next. He does exams with a hangover and still gets the best marks. He still functions and stays out of everyone’s way, so no one interferes.

 

He’s so deep in his altered mental state of being either drunk or suffering the next morning he doesn’t feel it when the tug develops. His body notices though. Tony starts absentmindedly rubbing his sternum occasionally, and he begins to spend less time in the bottle and more time in his lab.

 

People equate it to Tony finally coming to terms with his parent’s untimely deaths. How could they consider it to be related to the inconsequential birth of a small, dark haired child thousands of miles away? _Loki_ , his parent’s call him, _Loki, you will be loved._

 

Though currently asleep, Tony Stark still smiles.

 

***

 

When he hits 21, Tony wants to take over Stark Industries. Re-vamp the company and herald in a new wave of technology. He stems the production of weaponry and moves towards clean energy development.

 

This doesn’t make him very popular, so he soon finds himself shot at, half exploded and kidnapped by terrorist. He’s fighting for his life with an electromagnet imbedded in his chest at 25, and develops the miniaturised arc reactor, along with the Iron Man armour soon after. He blasts his way out, crippled by the loss of Yinsen and realising that he is very much alone in this harsh world.

 

He discovers Stane’s duplicity with his company upon his return to the US; Tony cripples his plans and destroys his stolen suit with Pepper’s help. They leave the destroyed lab, hand in hand, and as they start the cover up Tony begins to think that he isn’t completely alone.

 

The suit gets displayed privately in his lab. No one else will see it, but he’ll know what he’s done. It’s part of his life that he’s finished with, but needs to make sure he remembers it, if only to remind himself that he could do it again if he needed to. He shuts down Stark Industries, winds down all current contracts and sells off factories in rapid succession. He’s blamed for that year’s blips in the financial output of the country, but he puts his worry and energy into developing smaller start-ups with his other inventions.

 

He moves across the country to get away from Malibu and his parent’s legacy, he changes the arc reactor when it starts to play up, and then develops a new element to combat the rapidly spreading palladium poisoning. He doesn’t know how he comes up with it; he just sits up one night in bed and starts scrabbling for a piece of paper to jot down the plans. He doesn’t know that teenaged Loki has been plagued with chemistry thoughts and ideas for weeks, and had just collapsed into bed after cracking his current problem. Loki doesn’t know what he figured out the next morning, but it feels important, so he keeps the notes for future reference.

 

Tony settles in a new home, new lab, with Pepper at his side. It feels comfortable, and Tony starts considering the future. Then Pepper burns with her match, and Tony feels alone again. Pepper is still with him, but she isn’t his. He realises how childish he’d being and tries to suppress his reaction, but he can’t get rid of the niggling desire of someone being his and him belonging to someone else.

 

He begins to rub the reactor more frequently, and wonders if the old scar tissue is irritated or something. He doesn’t realise that Loki is in the city for the first time on a High School trip, that Loki is smiling as he feels his tug strengthen for the first time, or that Tony’s is tugging in response.

 

He just changes the reactor and puts his plans to resurrect Stark Industries into motion.

 

***

 

Tony has been feeling strange all week, out of sorts and irritable. His skin feels itchy all the time, like something is attempting to crawl its way out of his body. It is constantly unsettling and had made him snippy with everyone, including Jarvis and the bots. He’d been doing occasional tests, worrying that his body might be rejecting the arc reactor or that his heart might be suffering under the strain of the shrapnel. Everything he had tested his blood for had come back clean, his immune system is functioning better than it normally does and all the markers for cardiac damage are negative.

 

He can’t figure out what’s wrong, and that’s what is infuriating him the most. After a fitful sleep following an unproductive night in the lab, Tony decides to take a break. He needs to remove himself from his usual environment, he feels guilty with how rude he’d been to Jarvis and doesn’t feel like facing him just yet.

 

Instead of powering himself out in the gym like he usually does, Tony dons some of his workout clothes, grabs his headphones, and sets out from a side entrance of his home. Some enterprising paparazzi attempt to follow him, but he quickly loses them due to a combination of the speed he’s moving at and nipping down the little alleyways that he knows around the streets in his neighbourhood. He taps out a quick message to Jarvis on his phone to get the security increased as incursions into the area around his home have been increasing over the last while. He’d moved before due to privacy issues, he didn’t want to have to do it again.

 

He settles into a quick pace which eats into any distance he wants to run. It’s cooler than he expected this afternoon, so he shivers as his heart rate picks up and his breathing quickens. He starts to set up a rhythm he can easily maintain. He selects a track and blasts it through his headphones as he crosses streets and heads into the city.

 

He is unexpectedly disturbed when Jarvis gives a warning bleep, turns down the music in his headphones and interrupts. “Sir, you may want to take care. I’m reading a higher than average increase in your internal body temperature.”

 

“Jarv,” Tony gasps, “I’m running, it’s to be expected.”

 

“No Sir, you asked me to notify you whenever I detected anything abnormal, and this is outside your normal expected parameters when exercising. There is also a higher than expected increase in fine muscle tremor and an unexpectedly higher increase in perspiration. I’d request that you slow your pace and return back.”

 

Tony pauses at a set of traffic lights, waiting for the sign to cross and staring at the iron gates across the road. “Will do, Jarv. I’m going once around the park and then I’ll head right back home.”

 

“But Sir...!”

 

He gets the green light to cross and sets off at a run again. “Jarv, if it makes you feel better, get the car ready and send it out to pick me up. I wanna go around the park before I head back. Give ‘em my GPS signal, send them to bustle me into the car and let me ruin the nice seats on the way home.”

 

If an AI could sound disgruntled, Jarvis had it down to a T, answering with a clipped tone, “I will do that right now Mr Stark. I will continue to monitor your vital signs in case of any unexpected changes.”

 

“Thank you darling, you’re the best nanny I’ve ever had.” Tony says, grinning as he passes into the park.

 

“Yes Sir, but I’m also the only one that you are unable to fire.”

 

***

 

If Tony had been feeling strange all week, it was nothing compared to how he was feeling now. He’d obeyed Jarvis’s urgings, pulled off his headphones and was making his way to where the car was parked up a few blocks away. He’d been shivering hard for about five minutes, his temperature has rocketed and he can feel how hard his heart is beating. He’s scared, for the reactor, the shrapnel and his own heart. He is damned if he’s dying because of his own stubbornness.

 

He continues to run, but doesn’t know why. Surely walking would be the better choice? But as soon as he slows he feels an urgency that cannot be explained, so he speeds up again to combat it. Is he having a heart attack? He’s heard descriptions of patients having a “sense of impending doom”, but that isn’t how he’d describe this. He _needs_ to run; he _needs_ to get to that car.

 

He looks up and along the street he’s just turned into, three pedestrians, two men and one woman. One of the men is standing separate, and the couple are together and focussed on each other. The other man appears to be staring at him.

 

That’s just great, the last thing he needs now is another paparazzi or someone trying to shoot an idea at him rather than a camera. _Head down, run past him Tony._

 

As he dodges past the people he hears the expected response, “Wait! Please, wait!”

 

What surprises Tony completely is how his body reacts to the voice. He slows, turns and watches as the man runs towards him. Why is he doing this? The car is waiting and he doesn’t want to risk anything else happening. The man stops, he’s pale with dark hair and his eyes are burning fever-bright. He’s gasping for air and smiling at Tony as sweat drips down his face.

 

Tony mentally groans, he thinks that it is probably someone with an idea needing funding and a desire to get Tony to pay for it. But as he watches the man and observes how his eyes roam over Tony’s face... he considers that money may be the dessert idea, with Tony himself being the main course. _Gold diggers_ , he thinks, he can get rid of this one easily. Fixing a stare he asks, “What?”

 

The man’s jaw trembles as he fumbles for words, still staring at Tony’s face. “It’s Loki, I’m Loki.” He stutters out.

 

Tony can feel his heart in his throat, and an unfamiliar frisson of something sharp and electric travels down his spine. It makes him uncomfortable, and he leans away from Loki slightly in an attempt to ease the feeling. It doesn’t work, he feels worse. “I’m sorry?” Tony asks, trying to sound strong, indignant at the interruption, “Who are you?” He blanches slightly after speaking, mentally kicking himself. Why did he ask that? He doesn’t want to know! He wants to leave!

 

Loki is visibly stumbling over his words now, hand half extended towards Tony, “I thought... I’m...” he responds slowly.

 

Tony can feel pressure in the back of his head now, radiating around to his face. He raises a hand a rubs his eyes before saying, “I think you might have me confused with someone else. I’ve never met you before.” _Please have me confused with someone else_ , he thinks.

 

There is a slow, stuttering response from the man in front of him, “I’m sorry; I just thought... You look like...”

 

Tony shakes his head, attempting to move the pain sitting behind his eyes before replying, “I don’t know you.”

 

Now Tony feels sick, really quite ill, the world is swimming as he tries to stare at the man. He feels like it’s a combination of the worst hangover nausea and the stabbing vertigo of labyrinthitis. He can see the other man nodding, and then casting his eyes around for something else. Won’t he just _stop_? Why doesn’t he just finish this? Tony just wants to _leave._ The sensation swells again as Tony slides his eyes to the hand Loki is extending and he feels cold tendrils of fear creeping over his skin. Loki is sweating and trembling and Tony _does not want this._

 

The man called Loki tries to fix a smile on his pale face and says, “M-my apologies then, it was my mistake. I thought you were someone I knew. My name is Loki; I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

 

He doesn’t know why he’s so scared, especially at the idea of touching this other man’s hand. This man is thin, almost waifish, and definitely does not fall into any kind of threat category, so why is he so terrified? He eyes the trembling hand warily and does not take it, and says, “Tony.”

 

The brief hint of relief on the other man’s face allows Tony to relax infinitesimally. He rubs his eyes, glances back and Loki and says, “Enchanted to meet you, I’ll be going now.”  Grabbing the moment, he wrenches his feet from where they feel fixed to the pavement and starts to run to the waiting car.

 

***

 

Tony doesn’t know what’s going on, the pain first hit when he took off from the stranger he met on the street. He’d got back to the car, ripped open the back door and toppled onto the seat before Happy could get out to help. Happy had been insistent on taking Tony to a hospital right away, but Tony had refused, insisting that Jarvis was monitoring him and everything was fine. The infuriating thing is that - once Tony had extracted and consulted his phone – according to Jarvis, he _is_ fine. Or at least... his vitals are falling away from the dangerous levels that they had been sitting at before and during his run.

 

According to Jarvis he should be feeling _better,_ not _worse._

He curls up on the seat, eschewing all traffic and seatbelt laws, as Happy drives towards home. He tries to draw his knees up higher and tucks his face deeper into his crossed arms as his chest aches. He uncrosses his arms to move and clutch at the arc reactor as feels like the pain may unseat it from its holding place in his chest. He feels like his ribs must be broken, cracked open in multiple places, for them to feel like this. This is worse than anything, worse than the surgery without anaesthetic he endured when the first electromagnet took its place in his chest, worse than the escape and worse than the battering he took when battling for his life against Stane.

 

Each of those times, rattling about in what felt like little more than a tin can, pales in comparison to this. He can’t think, is gasping for breath around each wave of pain and his vision is starting cloud at the edges. If he passes out, he’ll end up in hospital. That thought alone spurs him on to take deeper, spasm-wracked breaths.

 

The expensive leather swims back into view slowly, and his mouth feels dry from the passage of each deep lungful of air he’s steadily taking in. He focuses his eyes on the outwards-facing camera and can see that they’re close to home now, only a few blocks to go now. He grasps for his phone, trying to clumsily swipe the screen on whilst concentrating on each breath. “Jarvis!” He gasps on his next exhale.

 

“Sir?”

 

“Get... scanner on.” Tony groans out. “And... bloods done.”

 

“Will Mr Hogan be needing a st...”

 

Jarvis’s question is cut off as Tony registers a new peak in his pain levels. He screams. There is no doubting his reaction, his chest feels like it has been split open, his ribcage spreading and his insides burning from the exposure. As soon as it’s happened, it’s over. Tony flops onto his back on the cushioned seats, wheezing and sobbing as tears run down his temples towards his hairline. His eyes close as he registers the first drop in pain levels since he left the park, his body begins to relax, demanding rest as the pain has subsided.

 

Then a niggling thought settles into his mind. Something doesn’t feel right, doesn’t feel _normal._ His mind feels shocked, like he’s been thrown in a pool of cold water, slow and sluggish to respond. He takes a quick mental inventory, trying to tally how his body is responding. He feels cold after the sudden wash of pain, and while his chest isn’t hurting anymore, it doesn’t feel right either. His stomach roils uneasily, objecting to the movement of the car as it speeds up, moving away from traffic lights.

 

He lifts his shirt, anxious to check the bright blue glow of the reactor. He finds it placed, as expected, unmoved by happenings, still imbedded in his sternum. Tony runs his hand around the rim, trying to identify what is worrying him. The reactor feels normal, but he has a suspicious feeling that something has happened underneath the casing and plating. Something is making him feel hollow, unfilled.

 

The emptiness is seated exactly under the reactor top, deep within the chamber holding the active element. It feels lighter than it should - worryingly so - but the reactor appears to be functioning fine. His breath catches as he inhales; inattentively rubbing at the reactor as he considers what might have caused the pain. He needs to get to a scanner as soon as possible because the first option, highest on the list, is that the metal fragments in his chest have somehow shifted. If they have, that means that there would have to be a problem with the magnetic field that is generated by the reactor. The reactor itself _shouldn’t_ be the issue, he’d only changed it a few months ago, and it shouldn’t have reason to malfunction so soon.

 

That thought neatly ties in with his next idea: sabotage. His mind casts back to the younger man he’d met, _Loki_ , he thinks. He’d been carrying a pretty large satchel; it’d be relatively easy to conceal a device large enough to disrupt local magnetic fields. It really wouldn’t be difficult, but it would be difficult for one person to do on their own. Loki - if that was really his name - could just have been an actor hired to distract Tony long enough to gain the correct exposure. Loki might have just been a pretty face, a front for a much larger plan. That thought was worrying enough in itself. Did someone know about the reactor? If Tony’s miniaturised reactor becomes common knowledge... Tony could be in serious danger.

 

The hollowness rattles as Tony inhales deeply, trying to ignore the edge of sickness still settled in his stomach. He scrubs his hands over his face as the car pulls up outside his home, waiting for the signal from Happy telling him it was clear to jump out. He hears the knock and quickly opens the door, exiting with haste as his stomach turns again.

 

The scans need to happen first, before he vomits.

 

***

 

_This can’t be right_ , Tony thinks as he examines the scans. He’s cranked the heating up in the workshop, sending his bots circling with worry as they register the increase in temperature. Upon explaining that he’s cold, they spin into action. U drags over a blanket and pillow from the cot in the corner, waiting beside his chair until Tony is tucked in to its satisfaction. Butterfingers just hovers behind him (or at least hovers as well as a robot can) making soft, worried noises. Dummy fetches him soup without prompting, encased in one of his microwaveable, sealed cups. He’d developed them after one too many incidents where Dummy’s enthusiasm with helping when Tony was sick overrode some of his safety protocols. Tony was glad to continue avoiding lapfuls of scalding soup.

 

He sips his soup and scrutinises the scans more. He drags up torso scans from the past few weeks, comparing and contrasting between each separate date. _This really can’t be right,_ he thinks.

 

The scans are nearly identical. The shrapnel hasn’t moved, the reactor hasn’t shifted its position, and the power output appears to have been constant over the last 24 hours according to Jarvis’s data. What aren’t computing are the other changes, changes that are both major and minor. Nothing negative, all overwhelmingly positive, but Tony is unable to understand what caused them.

 

The little things include a decrease in inflammation around the reactor site; the skin even appears less irritated when Tony pulls his shirt down to take a closer look at it. He zooms in on the heart, just to discover that his arteries appear less occluded, and he’d bet that his cholesterol has gone down too.

 

The larger things are what worry him more. He checks his ribs - regularly broken and battered, to the point where his physician wanted him to take medication to increase his bone density – and they appear almost as new. He needs to check where the main fractures were placed on previous scans and then needs to search the newer scans minutely before he finds the healed breaks. The minor, hairline breaks are completely healed, more than healed, healed to the point that they don’t even show up on the scans. The larger breaks are more apparent, if you can call it that, appearing as no more than mended hairline fractures.

 

The scarring on his internal organs, some self-inflicted and other parts inflicted upon him when he had been captured in the desert, has reduced. His most recent blood tests all show that his liver, kidneys, spleen and pancreas are functioning better, functioning at a level that would imply he was twenty years younger than his current age. His insulin resistance has decreased, and the enzymatic response liver tests imply he hasn’t spent a large part of his adult life drinking himself into the ground.

 

_What the fuck has happened?_ He thinks, rubbing at the reactor, aching to get at the hollowness sitting beneath his skin.

 

***

 

The hollow feeling doesn’t helpfully stay the same. It rings, echoing and rattling with every emotion that Tony experiences. That’s the only explanation he has for him being curled in a ball on the cot, up against the wall of the lab, sobbing persistently as Jarvis tries to calm him and his bots do little other than panic.

 

It only started as a pang of loneliness, a wish that someone was there to share dinner with him. It’s a common little twinge, regularly felt, as he prepares to microwave himself some leftovers. It stays with him through his meal, the desire for conversation and companionship sitting unspoken in his throat, making it difficult to swallow. He wipes down the table and loads his dishes into the dishwasher, making himself a cup of coffee and attempting a few small coughs in an attempt to clear what feels like a definite lump in his throat.

 

It steadily gets worse as he begins to feel cold again, the edge of sickness creeping back into his stomach. He wraps one hand around his mug and the other arm around his torso, clutching in an attempt to prevent himself from breaking apart. He gulps his scalding coffee, setting the empty mug down before he opens the dishwasher to place it inside. His hands are trembling as he put in the detergent tablet and sets the cycle to start. He clutches the counter top as he bends over to rest his head on the cool surface, almost begging for some relief from the gnawing pain in his chest.

 

He staggers back down to the lab in between bouts of nausea, collapsing on the cot as the next wave hits. He curls up into a ball, reminiscent of earlier on the back seat of his car, closes his eyes and starts to weep at the throbbing in his chest. _It’s still coming from the arc reactor,_ an unoccupied corner of his mind notes. The pulsation is so strong that Tony frees an arm and raises a hand to press against the reactor, to hold it in place and prevent it from loosening itself from where it sits in its holding.

 

He settles into a marginally stable position after a while, he’s wedged in against the wall and only comfortable because the arrangement prevents the rattling in his chest from reverberating any further. He calms his breathing and scrubs the tears from his face as he opens his eyes. The bots are crowded up against the cot, as close as they can get. It’s their chassis – pressed against the other side of the cot – that have prevented the cot moving and Tony being unceremoniously dumped on the floor at the same time. Tony looks up to see Dum-E extending his camera arm towards him and then making a soft, inquisitive noise, almost sounding worried. The sound is echoed by U and Butterfingers, both pressed in tightly behind Dum-E, as if trying to get as close to Tony as possible.

 

“Hey guys,” Tony chokes out softly. He shifts away from the wall, wincing as the side bar scrapes against his skin as he rolls over onto the cot. He keeps a hand pressed hard against the reactor and extends the other up to rest on Dum-E’s claw. Dum-E opens his claw, twists his mechanism and closes it so he ends up holding Tony’s hand in the most secure way possible, as if his hand was precious and Dum-E didn’t want to drop it. Tony is suddenly glad that the bots are in his life, glad that he built them and glad that he knows them so well.

 

“I’m feeling cold.” Tony tells the assembled bots, still holding tightly onto Dum-E’s claw. “Can you two-” he nods at U and Butterfingers, “-get me my pillow and blanket that I keep down here please? And then get me more blankets from the lab cupboard?” The two bots make affirmative sounds, and then speed off as fast as their tracks can carry them, Jarvis calling warnings to be careful out after them.

 

“Dum-E?” Tony asks, smiling slightly as Dum-E’s camera focuses down towards him, “Can you make me a drink? A hot one? Not coffee or tea though.” Dum-E makes a soft, inquisitive sound at the request. “I don’t want any caffeine.” Tony clarifies.

 

Tony closes his eyes as Dum-E bleeps once - a sure, confirmatory sound – before he bleeps again a moment later, a more sad and worried sound. Tony opens his eyes to find that Dum-E’s camera has turned towards his claw, where Tony’s hand is clutched securely. He turns his camera up at Tony and makes a second worried sound, lengthening the sound as he extends the camera towards Tony.

 

Tony chuckles slightly, sore and soft, and feels warmed by Dum-E’s worry for him. “I’ll be okay buddy, I need to get warm and the drink’ll help a lot. You can hold my hand again when you get back.” 

 

Dum-E looks at him for a second longer, before chirping softly and lowering his hand slowly. He trundles off towards the kitchenette in the corner to make Tony’s drink.

 

Tony slides onto his back, breathing deeply and pressing his hand hard against the rim of the reactor. He tries to relax with each breath, attempting to slowly loosen each muscle out, starting from his toes and working his way upwards. The pain is still there, but it doesn’t seem to be as acute as it was moments before.

 

“Jarvis?” Tony asks.

 

“Yes Sir?”

 

Tony rolls his question around on his tongue, wondering if it was foolish and paranoid of him. “Are you sure the reactor is okay?”

 

“I am positive.”

 

Tony bites his lip. He’s confident that Jarvis wouldn’t get something this important incorrect. But, still... “Would you think badly of me if I wanted to do the test again?” He asks softly, breathing the question out towards the ceiling. Once it’s gone, he feels almost embarrassed by it. “Not that I don’t trust you.” He stammers.

 

“Happily Sir. Would you like to do the blood tests again, along with the repeated scans? And then have all the information available again, to cross compare?”

 

Tony smiles gently, leans back against the wall, tilts back his head and breathes, “Please.”

 

“Now or later?”

 

Tony considers his answer as his attention is drawn to U and Butterfingers crossing the lab towards him, laden with blankets, a duvet and pillows. “Later, I think Jarv.” He says, “In the morning, when I feel more stable.”

 

He grins as U starts to make scolding noises towards him, tipping his blanket pile deliberately so the pillows perched on top fall onto his lap. Tony begins to arrange himself to his satisfaction, taking the duvet from Butterfingers and spreading it on the bottom of the cot for insulation. He props himself up against the wall with a pillow and wraps himself up in the blankets with enthusiastic encouragement from U.

 

The bots continue to crowd around Tony’s bedside as he sips the hot chocolate that Dum-E made him, it tastes slightly burnt, but Tony appreciates the gesture more than anything. Dum-E is holding the edge of his topmost blanket in the absence of a hand to hold, and the other two bots are conferring in little bleeps and whirs.

 

Taking another sip, Tony considers and then asks, “What are you guys talking about?”

 

The bleeping becomes slightly more insistent, so Jarvis answers the question with a slightly wry - but affectionate - tone of voice. “They’re worried about you Sir. They’ve never seen you like this, so they were wondering if you needed... maintenance was the exact word they were using, but recovery time is probably the best way of putting it.”

 

Tony feels his throat spasm closed for a second, a slightly more pleasant situation than earlier, and he swallows past the sensation to reassure his bots. “Thanks for worrying guys; I need your help right now, so I appreciate it.” Dum-E tugs as the blanket and bleeps in a questioning tone. “No, I don’t know what’s wrong yet. I’m trying to find out. I’ll let you know as soon as I can, I know you’re worrying.” All three bots nod fervently at Tony’s statement, U drawing out a questioning tone and tugging at the opposite corner of the blanket Dum-E is holding. “No, I don’t think I need anything else. I’m feeling slightly better right now.”

 

He considers that last statement, unconsciously raising a hand to his chest to rub the reactor as the area begins to throb again. “In fact,” he asks, “Could you show me what you guys have been working on over the last little while? We haven’t done a check-in for ages, have we?”

 

His question causes a whirlwind of activity, it’s all the bots need as encouragement to show off their lab skills. They each whizz off in separate directions, before returning quickly, each laden or dragging a small box filled with assorted parts and projects.

 

Tony places his mug down on the floor beside the cot and leans forward eagerly to see what his bots have brought for him to look over.

 

***

 

Tony wakes the next morning to Jarvis’s standard wake up call. He’s still on the cot in the lab, comfortable, with blankets piled up on top of him and a small number of wired circuits and gadgets sitting beside his pillow and on the floor. It almost feels normal, it almost feels alright. That is, until he stretches and his chest spasms again. He’s left gasping, curled in on himself under his bedding. The unrelenting sense of loneliness settles on him again, reminding him of the events of the previous day.

 

A curious sense of longing lingers with his memories of the afternoon, bitter in his mind and unpleasant to examine. Longing for what? Is he longing for a time when he didn’t feel this way? He hauls himself upwards into a sitting position, hand resting over the reactor again and glances around the lab. The bots are in their charging stations and the computer screens are quiet. He rolls his shoulders, hissing at the tension sitting in the muscles. He needs to get up, stretch, wash and eat breakfast. He’s got a meeting this morning and needs to be presentable.

 

As he stands up he flinches at the cold of the lab floor, and shivers anew at the temperature in the lab. “Jarvis, can we up the average lab temperature by about two Celsius?” He asks as he makes his way to the main computer bank.

 

“Of course, Sir. Do you need anything else this morning?”

 

Tony considers, fingers resting on his keyboard, eyes unseeing as he considers and unaware of his fingers creeping towards the L, O, K and I keys.

 

“Sir?”

 

He swallows and decides to take the plunge. Jarvis is already helping him with the testing and should be privy to anything else he needs. He takes a deep breath and says, “Loki.” His ears begin to thump with blood and his throat feels tight again. He feels terrified, all from a name.

 

“Loki, Sir? A traditional Scandinavian name with roots in...”

 

“No, Jarv.” Tony chokes out, cutting Jarvis off as he starts panting to fill his suddenly-tight chest. His hands move to clutch the edge of the metal worktable, the sharpness of the edge cutting through the panic in his mind at the sudden appearance of the name, of that name being said in Jarvis’s clipped tone. It was so strange, so wrong.

 

“Sir?”

 

Tony attempts to slow his breathing, in and out, gradually deepening and evening out. “I need you to find someone for me, with that name.”

 

“Are there any other details available Sir, a surname? An age? A field of reference to look within?”

 

Tony scrubs his eyes, pulls out his chair and collapses into it as he dredges up an amazingly clear image of him, Loki, in his mind. His breathing hitches as he gathers information. He swallows and forces out, “Over six foot, very pale, black hair. He was dressed smartly and didn’t appear to be a tourist, but he had a faintly British accent. He was probably no older than... he was probably in his late twenties as most. ”

 

“Thank you Sir, that has narrowed the search criteria significantly.”

 

Tony draws a simple pattern with his fingertip on the chair arm, trying to distract himself from the image of Loki in his head, worrying over what has happened to him since he met Loki yesterday. “How long do you think that it’ll take?” He asks, trying to sound casual.

 

“I cannot give you an accurate time frame Sir, but I will contact you if you are not here when it finishes.”

 

Tony rubs a hand over his face, scratching at his stubble before murmuring, “Thanks Jarv.”

 

***

 

After the search has been running for two days, Tony and Jarvis decide to leave the algorithm running on its own separate, dedicated system to prevent it from interfering with Jarvis’s normal processes. Tony has been frustrated as he has been unable to produce any more useful detail for Jarvis to search with.

 

He’s been remembering much more though, his mind lingering on the curve of Loki’s thin lips as he smiled at Tony. His attention is currently caught on the spread of veins under the thin skin of Loki’s wrist as he extended his hand towards Tony. He huffs, frustrated at his preoccupation with _veins,_ damn it. He taps his fingers on the desk, perturbed more than anything now as he swears he _heard_ Loki as he slept last night. He was... telling a story, Tony thinks. Tony swallows as the hollow feeling in his chest pulses as he remembers what he thinks was Loki’s voice.

 

He clenches his hand into a fist against the cool wood of the desk and thinks; _preoccupation is not a good thing right now,_ as he scrubs at his eyes with his other hand. He’s present in the boardroom for the main brokerage deal for the new Stark Industries, and he can’t bloody well concentrate. Pepper has already asked if he was okay once, he can’t draw her ire by being absentminded again. The interested parties will be arriving soon; he can’t afford to be distracted right now.

 

But he’s been pondering his situation since the chance meeting on the street. He’d been feeling out of sorts for about a week, but after the meeting with Loki his mental condition has deteriorated as his physical condition had peaked. He hasn’t felt healthier in years, but the constant worry and throbs of loneliness have kept him almost bound to his home as he waited for the search results. He feels that Loki has his answer, that Loki has done something to him to cause this change. That _Loki_ is the only one who can shed some light on his current... situation. He did something to Tony and he needs to explain what has happened as soon as possible.

 

He shoves a hand in his pocket and pulls out his phone to check the progress of the search. A number, 43%, sits on his screen, highlighted in amber and blinking occasionally as it refreshes. _Concentrate,_ Tony tells himself.

 

***

 

Loki shifts his backpack onto his other shoulder as he pulls out his wallet. He’s found a pack of the sweets that his mother used to buy for Thor and him when they were going on holiday and is buying them for nostalgia’s sake. He smiles as he considers the garish packaging and the undoubtedly numerous additives, lost in remembering them splitting the packet between them and trading flavours.

 

His reminiscing is interrupted by thoughts of Tony again, thoughts of sharing and of _together._ He puffs a breath out in a sharp sigh - irritated with himself again - and grabs a bottle of water from the cooler. He’s convinced that he’s getting better, in as much as he’s been able to function more readily over the last few days. He’s planned and packed with Darcy’s help, went out and bought guide books and generally distracted himself a lot.

 

He steps up to the end of the queue, waiting to pay and letting his eyes wander over the magazines. He’s not going to deny that – when moments are quiet, when Darcy isn’t around – his mind still wanders to Tony. He thinks of Tony’s eyes, the curve of the muscles of his neck, the sound of his voice and the look of his hands. He seemed strong, stronger than Loki feels right now. He swallows past the lump in his throat, squashing down the longing and reminds himself that he’s in public. He frowns as he realises, it’s probably going to be like this forever. He thinks – hopes - that the feeling will dull with time, but he accepts that he’ll probably be left wanting after Tony for the rest of his life.

 

His attempts at calming himself down continue as the line moves forward and he stops beside the “Technology and Business” section of the magazine racks. His next breath catches in his throat as he spies a headline with an accompanying picture on a glossy magazine front. He stares at it for a few seconds before grabbing for it without further thought as he’s called forward to pay. He stuffs everything in his backpack and heads out of the shop.

 

He finds the nearest bathroom and locks himself inside the cleanest, quietest cubical, puts the seat down to sit on and pulls out the magazine. “STARK RISING” is blazoned across the cover, over a picture of a smiling Tony. His breath is coming in panting gasps as he scrambles through the pages to confirm, eyes settling and reading: “... child genius and technological master Tony Stark is...”

 

He pulls out his phone and checks the time. He’s got fifteen minutes until his gate is announced and about another forty five until boarding starts. _It’s enough time_ , he thinks as he snaps a picture to send to Darcy. He sets his phone on his knee, an alarm on for ten minutes time and continues to stare at the magazine.

 

_Well,_ he thinks, awarding himself with a watery smile, _small victories. At least I now know what he looks like when he’s smiling; even if he didn’t do it for me._

 

***

 

Tony arrives as the door, checking the address again and leaves his finger hovering over the doorbell as he considers. The name tag underneath catches his eye and answers his question, _D. Lewis and L. Borresen. Might be a couple,_ he thinks as he jabs at the bell and waits for an answer. He dismisses his throat twitching closed at the thought as his tension and nerves at finally being here and finally seeing Loki again.

 

The door swings open and a woman in jeans and a woollen jumper is standing in the doorway, a puzzled expression on her face.

 

“Hi, are you Miss Lewis? I was looking for...” Tony starts to say before being interrupted swiftly by the woman.

 

“YOU!” She shouts, pointing at Tony’s face before demanding, “What the fuck are you doing here? Why are you here now?”

 

Slightly taken aback and avoiding the end of the finger being pointed at him, Tony answers, “Um, I was looking for Loki Borresen, and,” he pauses, confused, before continuing, “what d’you mean... here now?”

 

She drops her hand, frowning at Tony. “He’s not here, he’s gone. He left this morning.”

 

Tony’s mind jolts, stunned slightly by the information. “What d’you mean, left? Where is he?” he demands quickly, panic beginning to set in.

 

“Probably half way around the world by now.” She answers, slinging a hand on her hip and leaning against the door. “Took me long enough to convince him that he was making the right decision and that you weren’t coming.”

 

Tony frowns. “Why would he think that I’d be coming to see him?” he asks, puzzled.

 

She snorts, shrugging. “Don’t ask me,” she says, “You’re the piece of shit that ran away from his soulmate.”

 

 Tony’s stomach drops at her words as he manages to choke out the question, “My soulmate?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Fel for beta-ing the chapter! :3  
> You can find me as clareithromycin on tumblr too.


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